L.A. Sheriff Baca’s failures are displayed again: Editorial

It just keeps getting worse for Sheriff Lee Baca — and, more important, for Los Angeles County residents who counted on him to lead the world’s largest sheriff’s department.

Whether Baca can be relied upon to lead is in more doubt than ever after an FBI investigation of jail inmate abuse led to the indictments handed down Monday against 18 current and former sheriff’s deputies.

The 18, of whom at least 16 were taken into custody, are subordinates, not L.A. Sheriff’s Department brass.

But for anyone who wonders if blame for the department’s failures goes all the way to the top, a statement from the U.S. attorney announcing the indictments was damning.

The investigation showed “these incidents did not take place in a vacuum,” U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr. said. “In fact, they demonstrated behavior that had become institutionalized.”

Some members of the Sheriff’s Department, Birotte said, “considered themselves to be above the law.”

A leader sets the culture of an institution, and if these allegations are correct, Baca’s management clearly has failed.

The various charges laid out in five separate criminal cases include illegal beatings of Men’s Central Jail inmates and visitors. They include civil-rights violations in the form of arrests and detentions of five people visiting inmates (including the Austrian consul general), according to the Justice Department statement. They include illegally building and possessing an assault rifle.

And they include lying to investigators, along other obstruction-of-justice charges. The Justice Department alleges that two Sheriff’s Department lieutenants attempted to hide an inmate from the FBI and federal marshals, falsifying records to make it appear the man had been released, after learning he was cooperating with the investigation.

These are grave charges.

The inferences shovel more dirt on Baca’s future even as the 71-year-old continues to insist he will run for a fifth term next June.

The scandals have been piling up for more than a year, starting with a September 2012 report by the American Civil Liberties Union alleging brutal treatment of jail inmates by deputies. In response, Baca said he fired about 10 deputies and guards for failing to meet the department’s code of conduct, and pushed out Undersheriff Paul Tanaka in what Baca said was an effort to create more direct communications with assistants.

But there was more trouble to come: federal investigations. A Los Angeles Times report that the sheriff had hired more than 100 deputies despite records of past misconduct. A recommendation by an independent Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence that closed-circuit cameras and scanners be installed and jail personnel be rotated to prevent cliques from developing. The move by the county Board of Supervisors to hire public-corruption prosecutor Max Huntsman as an inspector general for the Sheriff’s Department.

Advertisement

And now this.

In a statement Monday afternoon, Baca called it a “sad day for the department.” That’s one thing he has got right. It’s a sad day from the bottom of the Sheriff’s Department to the top, and a disturbing day for all L.A. County residents.

The 18 criminal indictments against L.A. sheriff’s deputies are an unofficial but no less serious indictment of their boss.